Assuming (yes, I'm making an assumption here) that today's standards were in place when surgeon in question went through the process, he would have had to:

1) get into Harvard. Even assuming he was an AA admit, he was at least the cream of that crop.2) make it through two years of classes3) get a very high score on the USMLE (iirc, the lowest quintile for surgeons is still above the average for all medical students. I can look this up another time if it matters).4) get stellar recommendations from rotations in the 3rd and 4th years from doctors in programs NOT directly affiliated with Harvard.5) Finish the rest of the licensing process.6) Get accepted to a surgery residency somewhere7) Make it through the several years of the residency (again NOT under a Policy that some author HEARD Harvard had.)

Given this, what assumptions would you have to make to maintain your previous claims? This is your first homework assignment.

There we go! Now we're getting somewhere.

You make a good counter-argument, one that I wouldn't have thought of (which is why I wanted you to explicitly state your objection in the first place). I admit that I don't nearly have enough facts for the originally supplied anecdote to serve as air-tight evidence that the doctor in question is underqualified. I was going on someone else's recollection of an event that occurred before I was born, and assessment of the doctor in question as unqualified. In fairness, this isn't the best type of evidence to use in concluding anything.

Still, the evaluations you had specified in 1) -> 7) could all have been influenced by AA; that is, poor performance could have been glossed over in favor of promoting the doctor in congruence with the aims of AA. And the person providing the assessment had reached his conclusion that AA had compromised the evaluation process for this doctor based on his entree to the administrators and faculty at HMS. If you believe his assessment is credible, then the argument holds; if not, then it doesn't.

Regardless, the presence of AA allows other people to think that the doctor's screwup was a result HMS's AA policies permitting the graduation of underqualified doctors, and any AA that would be taken into consideration in subsequent evaluatory steps, even if the doctor's screwup was a genuine mistake. This draws doubts upon the qualifications of anyone favored by AA, regardless of their actual level of competency.

If AA had never been implemented as a policy, other people wouldn't have any reasons to think this, saving the competency of the competent doctors in the would-be favored-class from being questioned due to the screwup of someone else in the would-be favored-class.

the jews seem to have broken through it. difference between them, other groups? (i have an answer in mind, but i'm curious as to whether people think the same thing i do.)

For starters they look almost entirely like Whites Christian counterparts which makes for an almost seamless assimilation. Any other characteristics such as their last name or religion they can change or hide to avoid discrimination and prejudice. They also received reparations from the holocaust between 4-6 billion.

For that matter "US paid 1.6 Billion to Japanese Americans for 4 years and paid Black People $0 for 400 years of forced labor"